HBO‘s upcoming Harry Potter series will venture into new territory concerning Draco Malfoy.
Actor Lox Pratt, 14, who has been cast as the sneering and sniveling young wizard, says the series version will show Malfoy’s home life in the show’s very first season (in the books, the Malfoy residence is kept offstage into the final novel).
“I think with this adaptation, you get to see so much more than the books,” said Pratt during an interview with 1883 Magazine. “[The books] are very much over Harry’s shoulder, which is great, and that’s how they played in the film as well. And I think [showrunner] Francesca [Gardiner] and [director] Mark [Mylod] have been [vocal] about this in their interviews, there’s just so much more that you get to see. You get to see all the teachers in their little rooms. You get to see Draco at home. I won’t spoil too much about that, but there are some brilliant scenes at home where you start to get an insight into how he is.”
Pratt is making the rounds as he promotes his role in Jack Thorne’s new BBC adaptation of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. “The vibe on set is amazing,” Pratt told THR about Harry Potter. [Lucius Malfoy actor] Johnny Flynn’s wonderful. He’s a really wonderful man. I think we work pretty well as a duo on-screen, or I like to think we do. But he’s a lovely guy and he’s got a lot of aura.”
Pratt’s comments also help explain the casting of Lucius in the first season, as Draco’s father didn’t actually have a role to play in J.K. Rowling’s novels until the second book.
Also in Potter news, Warner Bros. Discovery’s CEO and president of global streaming, JB Perrette, is already building excitement for the show. “The scope of the production, the detail, meticulousness of what they’re going through and what they’ve built takes theatrical to just a whole different level,” Perrette recently said. “And so when you think of the love of that franchise and what you can do in a series — can go deeper, and tell more of the story, can tell more of the pieces that you didn’t get to capture in a two-hour movie — [HBO Max chief] Casey [Bloys] doesn’t like it when I say this, but I’m gonna say it anyway: I really think this is the streaming event of the decade.”
And in yet another recent Potter headline, the casting of John Lithgow as Albus Dumbledore continues to get reactions from some in the creative community, given Rowling’s trans views. A non-binary costar of Lithgow said they had mixed feelings about his casting.
“I never felt invalidated or questioned or doubted in my identity or in my transness by him,” Aud Mason-Hyde told Out magazine. “I consistently felt that he was a very loving and a very guiding co-star. And so there’s an element of [him being in the Harry Potter series] that feels vaguely hurtful. But also, I think that [he made] this decision after we had made the film and after we had premiered the film, can’t take away from what we had and the time that we spent together and the beautiful work that he does in this movie and actually how incredibly authentically he played the role.”
Harry Potter is expected to premiere in 2027. Here is the complete cast of the new series.